Don Wade Columnist Darren Niethammer gets another chance to chase The Dream Professional baseball is a business at all levels. So last year the Texas Rangers did what any good baseball organization would have done. They released a 23-year-old catcher who couldn't throw. Thus, Darren Niethammer spent last summer in Florida, working in a sporting goods store instead of playing in the Class A Florida State League. "I tried last season to E get on made with another wrote let- team - calls, ters," said Niethammer, a North High School graduate and former University of Evansville player. "Nothing ever happened." He wound up playing for a semi-pro team in Orlando. So there he was, selling tube socks and jockNiethammer straps, receiving rejection after rejection, playing with guys who weren't even good enough to carry his tube socks and jockstrap. Baseball, what a glamorous life. "In '89 he was coming off of an arm problem (surgery for a rotator cuff injury)," said Marty Scott, the Rangers' director of player development. "It was a case of him not being able to perform. In spite of always liking the way he swung the bat, if you can't play a position Then you can't take up a roster spot. At least not when you're a 16th-round draft choice, which is what Niethammer was in June 1987. First-round draft choices are baseball's bonus babies; 16th-round draft choices are baseball's foster children. "They (major league teams) draft a thousand every June and a thousand get released every September," said Jim Brownlee, baseball coach at UE. The 24-year-old Niethammer wasn't released that quickly. He played one season of rookie ball in Florida and about a half-season with Class A Port Charlotte, Fla., in 1988 before hurting his shoulder. He hit .295 with one home run and 20 runs batted in. But he was abandoned every bit as unceremoniously as those whose professional careers last only three months. "There's a lot of politics," Niethammer said last week, when he still didn't know if he would have a full-time baseball job this summer. "If you're not one of their top picks big-money picks - you kind of get put on the back burner. "The only reason I came back this year is I know I can still compete. My arm is stronger; I think I'm throwing better than I threw in college." Last weekend, Niethammer learned his professional baseball career will be extended; he made the Port Charlotte team as reserve everything - first baseman, left fielder, catcher, designated hitter. "He worked hard, came in here and won a job," Scott said. Said Brownlee: "He's as good an athlete as we've had here. When he was here, he could have been anything he wanted to be." What he was, from 1984 through 1987, was a career .287 hitter who drove in 113 runs and hit 24 home runs, 35 doubles and six triples in 627 at-bats. Good numbers. But Brownlee is convinced he could have done more. "His work habits were terrible. Just terrible," Brownlee said. "He has enough ability to play in the big leagues, but there's a lot more that goes into it." Even Niethammer admits hard work wasn't his forte in college. "There were a lot of other things to do," he said. "Back then, it was easy. That's changed. Now you have to work a little harder to survive." And surviving is exactly what Niethammer has done in making the Rangers' Class A team. No more, no less. "He's got to make up for lost time," said Scott. "He's got a spot on the club, but he's got to impress fast if he's going to make it to the big leagues." The Rangers were baseball's Organization of the Year in 1989 and their minor league system is well-stocked with catching prospects. So Niethammer will have to hit his way to recognition, and do it while playing only part-time. Although 6-foot-2 and 220 pounds, Niethammer hasn't shown much power professionally. Few players rattle the fences in the Florida State League, where ballparks are big and home run totals are small, but that's only a good excuse if you are 18 or 19 and one of those big-money guys. It wasn't even three years ago that Niethammer became a professional baseball player. That's not so long, is it? "I y was just excited to have the chance. I didn't think twice about it," 1 Niethammer recalled. "They came in, I signed, and took off for Florida a week later.' The Dream probably seemed closer then, before The Chase had officially begun. Now Darren Niethammer is at the back of the pack. For a while, at least, The Chase continues. I Don Wade's column appears in The Courier every